Toward the end of a marathon 50 minute phone interview with Patrice Oneal, we posed the question, “When you first started doing the Opie and Anthony show, did you think you’d become such a big part of it?”

Germain Lussier

Click HERE for the full Patrice Oneal profile article.

Toward the end of a marathon 50-minute phone interview with Patrice Oneal, we posed the question, “When you first started doing 'The Opie and Anthony Show,' did you think you’d become such a big part of it?”

His response elicited an eye opening story.

“To be quite honest, I was not a regular until they came back to XM. I first went on there on WNEW and I was there a few times and made a good name for myself the first few times I went on. [Rich] Vos actually brought me down. Vos is the one that introduced me to the guys. We had good times. I was only on there like two, three times, maybe four, then they got fired for the sex in a church thing.

And they were gone and I went and did Howard Stern. When I first went to Brazil they were off so I had just come back so I went on Stern and talked about Brazil and I was on there twice.

Now, I could have easily been a Stern guy, but I was listening to Stern one morning and he was like, ‘Oh man, hey, what’s the fat comedian that goes to Brazil?’ And that’s what he referred to me as, ‘the fat comedian that goes to Brazil’ and I was on his show and I gave that [expletive deleted] great radio, twice. Good radio two times.

Really good radio. And he disrespected me in that way where it’s like, ‘Nah, man, I was on your show twice for three hours and giving you my life. I was sharing my life with you, man, and it was a big moment.’ That was when I first came back. My mind was really there, so he got the best Brazil story that anybody can get because I was straight off the boat coming back from there. And he called me ‘that fat comic from Brazil’ and Artie [Lange], I remember, was like, ‘Well, Howard, his name is Patrice,’ and he’s like ‘Yeah, yeah.’

So it was like, Opie and them never treated me like that. They never made me have a place. Stern was trying to put in a place like I was [expletive deleted] Beetlejuice or something like that. I’m the fat Brazil guy. And he makes people like Artie Lange is the drugged up fat guy, and if he’s ever not that then he doesn’t have any purpose on the radio. But on O&A, I’m me. I’ve got my own [stuff]. I’ve got my own way of thinking and I get to be on there and I get to be me.

And so when they came back, you know, it was weird because they was coming back with a vengeance and I had done Stern so it was a little weird, but I was like, ‘Look, man, you guys were gone. What the [expletive deleted] you want me to do? Not do radio while you’re gone? You want me to call you on the phone and tell you the story, [expletive deleted]?’ So we got that out the way and it’s been what it is ever since. It’s been about a good four years. So it’s well appreciated.”